Starfield Review

It’s also worth noting that the worlds you explore are generally visually different (with varying levels of gravity) but fairly barren and lifeless. You have to put a skill point, of which you only get one per level, into those to unlock them. Those problems never got better during my playthrough – I just learned to live with them.

ASTRO’s PLAYROOM

These are modifiers that aren’t afraid to be dramatic enough to be game-changers that you’d build your character around. I found a spacesuit that has a 10% chance to set nearby attackers on fire and made me invisible when I crouched and held still. This definitely isn’t the first game in which I’ve seen a soldier panic just before his jetpack explodes, but that never really gets old. To their credit, enemies do react in amusing ways when shot in their heads, legs, or arms, and they will sometimes flee when you’ve killed off their friends. Without anything new and exciting to fill the void left by Fallout’s distinctive VATS system, gunplay is left feeling largely unmemorable.

Experience console-level gaming packed in a sleek and ergonomic chassis. Built for game developers, VFX artists, and 3D pros who need power, precision, and expandability. Like Skryim and Fallout 4 before it, there’s still an immense amount of quality roleplaying quests and interesting NPCs out there, waiting to be stumbled across, and the pull to seek it out is strong. It’s never a great sign when someone recommends a game on the grounds that it gets good after more than a dozen hours, but that’s very much the kind of game Starfield is, and I do recommend it. This may be the best unlocking minigame I’ve ever seen in an RPG, and I put more skill points into it than I probably needed to just to gain access to more challenging locks.

Navigate bustling cities, explore dangerous bases, and traverse wild landscapes. Venture through the stars and explore more than 1000 planets. In Starfield the most important story is the one you tell with your character. Discover, access and play downloadable content for Starfield! From subtle tweaks to ambitious adventures, community-made Creations bring vast opportunities to a universe-sized sandbox.

Dominate leaderboards, stream your gameplay, or tackle creative projects with this expandable powerhouse. It was the joys piloting a custom spaceship into and out of all sorts of morally ambiguous situations in a rich sci-fi universe that eventually pulled it out of a nosedive. Alas, there is no ability to respec your skills, and by the time I realized the major investment I’d need to fully unlock shipbuilding it was too late for this run. Unlike the classic X-Wing games there are no shield facings to adjust, so it’s mostly just light and arcadey blasting. I was especially disappointed by the more powerful enemies you run into in the latter half of the story; oftentimes they simply stand there shooting at me while I empty my shotgun into their faces and stagger or otherwise disable them, ending those supposedly big fights just as they began. Early on you don’t need huge quantities of a single resource, so it’s largely a waste of time until you’ve climbed to the higher ranks of the crafting skill trees.

Tell your story

Granted, it’s nowhere near as precise and lifelike as motion-captured performances we’ve seen in The Last of Us and God of War, but it’s on par with other big RPGs where you interact with hundreds of NPCs for dozens of hours, like Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s always a bit tough to choose this on your first playthrough, since you don’t really know what you’re getting into and there’s no respecing allowed, but none of them is dramatic enough to really hinder you. Creating your character is a matter of picking a background story for them that comes with a set of skills and traits, as well as up to three modifiers.

Legion Space

I wouldn’t call a lot of it especially distinctive – it’s a setting that’s reminiscent of The Expanse, Firefly, and Starship Troopers, full of references to every sci-fi movie from Aliens to Blade Runner, and of course Interstellar. It’s chock-full of backstory about wars between its three major factions, run-ins with mysterious space deathclaws called terrormorphs, pirates, and an immense amount more. Even when it mostly righted the ship and I was loving the story, sidequests, and launching boarding parties on enemy ships, there were still too many problems that constantly popped up, forcing me to curb my excitement. Play Starfield and hundreds of high-quality games for one low monthly price with Game Pass.

Ways to play

This next generation role-playing game marks a return to the studio’s deep RPG roots of meaningful customisation, dialogue and choice. Whether you prefer long-range rifles, laser weapons or demolitions, each weapon type can be modified to complement your play style. Personalise the look of your ship, modify critical systems including weapons and shields, and assign crew members to provide unique bonuses. Buy Starfield once and play on Xbox console and PC for no additional cost. Buy once, play on Xbox console and PC

Enjoyable for all

Studio-class power wrapped in a sleek Forged Carbon shell. With you as their rock, there’s nothing they can’t accomplish. This isn’t “just a game”.

Like Bethesda’s previous RPGs, Starfield is a game that is roughly 30% inventory management… and yet it is shockingly bad at that task. The reality, though, is that this isn’t even how we get around the real world today – not since the iPhone rolled out in 2007 – so it’s exasperating to be in the year 2330 with no comparable navigation tools. Within a city, there’s nothing to guide you around beyond shop signs and text-only directories that tell you what stores are located in which district, but not where they actually are. All you get is an extremely low-detail display showing you large points of interest – such as the many abandoned research and mining posts where raiders and robots wait for you to shoot and loot them – and the large swaths of alien wasteland and wilderness that separates them. A mission might send you to the other side of the vast starmap, but the actual travel time between systems is always the same (and the poorly explained fuel system, which is actually just your range, isn’t much of a limitation). But then I realized that, in many circumstances, I could bypass most of that procedure by just going to the map screen and jumping to another planet without even setting foot on my ship.

With non-stop magic, endearing characters and plenty of humour, this is the perfect game for families to enjoy. Explore four worlds, each one showcasing innovative gameplay using the new and versatile features of the PS5 DualSense™ wireless controller. Game Companion acts as your AI sidekick while you play. Enjoy AI experiences to help you game better. Durable, eco-friendly, ultra light, and water-resistant options for gamers on-the-go. See the whole battlefield in motion on Lenovo gaming monitors with features such as 3-sided Near Edgeless in-plane switching screens.

• Creating your character is a matter of picking a background story for them that comes with a set of skills and traits, as well as up to three modifiers.
• To avoid becoming overloaded you’ll constantly need to transfer the weapons, space suits, materials, and alien goo you’ve collected between your inventory and your companion’s, or to and from your ship’s cargo hold, but maddeningly you can’t view the contents and capacities of both the giving and receiving container at the same time.
• Without anything new and exciting to fill the void left by Fallout’s distinctive VATS system, gunplay is left feeling largely unmemorable.
• All you get is an extremely low-detail display showing you large points of interest – such as the many abandoned research and mining posts where raiders and robots wait for you to shoot and loot them – and the large swaths of alien wasteland and wilderness that separates them.
• I never felt like my Constellation teammates were wasting my time when they asked to chat, since they always had something to share about their background or a quest they wanted me to help them with.

The world, exploration, crafting, atmosphere, and story of Fallout 4 are all key parts of this hugely successful sandbox role-playing game. I won’t say much about where the plot goes because there’s a lot that can easily be spoiled, but I did enjoy the way it probes its biggest concepts – even those we’ve seen plenty of times before – in distinctive ways, and there’s plenty of well-written discussion about what it all means. Enjoy hundreds of high-quality games on console, PC and cloud.

I’m glad that I powered through the early hours, because its interstellar mystery story pays off and, once the ball got rolling, combat on foot and in space gradually became good enough that its momentum carried me into New Game+ after I’d finished the main story after around 60 hours. The other side of combat is ship-to-ship battles, which are also fairly simple as space dogfighting games go. I loved Bethesda’s last single-player RPG, Fallout 4 (maybe a bit too much), and there’s nothing I like more than a sci-fi universe with spaceships, lasers, and political intrigue flying every which way.

• Like Bethesda’s previous RPGs, Starfield is a game that is roughly 30% inventory management… and yet it is shockingly bad at that task.
• I was especially disappointed by the more powerful enemies you run into in the latter half of the story; oftentimes they simply stand there shooting at me while I empty my shotgun into their faces and stagger or otherwise disable them, ending those supposedly big fights just as they began.
• Unlock seamless control and AI-powered gaming.
• I loved Bethesda’s last single-player RPG, Fallout 4 (maybe a bit too much), and there’s nothing I like more than a sci-fi universe with spaceships, lasers, and political intrigue flying every which way.

Some – like the one where your parents are alive and well (if you don’t pick this they just never come up), or the one where a crazed fan follows you around – sound like they’ll be fun to experiment with later, which adds a sense of replayability. But it’s so densely packed in, with more stories around every corner, that I found it easy to get invested in it – once I learned the difference between the United Colonies and the Freestar Collective. In fact, there’s a significant similarity to what Obsidian created for 2019’s The Outer Worlds. Things never went too far off course while I was flying my rinkydink little ship around chasing down mysterious artifacts and war criminals with a damn fine crew of companions at my side, but man did Starfield make me work hard to get through that opening stretch. In the year 2330, humanity has ventured beyond our solar system, settling new planets, and living as a spacefaring people.

Take time to enjoy the many hidden references to PlayStation® console history and collect timeless artefacts to display in your beloved PlayStation Labo! Every time you level up a skill you unlock a challenge, which might be as simple as killing X enemies with laser weapons or as situational as using your boost pack X times during combat, and this has to be completed before you can spend another point to level the skill up again. Out of the gate you can’t mod your equipment, you can’t use your spacesuit’s boost pack (which is super useful and fun, especially in low gravity, and I can’t imagine not having it for an entire playthrough), and you can barely use stealth or board enemy ships at all. To avoid becoming overloaded you’ll constantly need to transfer the weapons, space suits, materials, and alien goo you’ve collected between your inventory and your companion’s, or to and from your ship’s cargo hold, but maddeningly you can’t view the contents and capacities of both the giving and receiving container at the same time. Enjoy games or movies anywhere with Legion Glasses — a personal, wearable, plug-and-play monitor.

Xbox Play Anywhere

That’s a noticeable bit of progression that pops up between levels, and adds to the roleplaying feeling that my character has actually honed this skill instead of magically mastering it. For all the criticism I have with the stinginess of the skill system, especially in the early hours, it does deserve credit for its clever hybridizing of traditional RPG skill unlocks and The astronaut game app Elder Scrolls’ system of increasing your skills as you use them. Even so, it’s entertaining enough to blast away at pirates (or to become one yourself) and watch the resulting explosions tear ships into pieces.

Mix and match to build your cutting-edge playground that fulfills all your gaming needs. Experience the future of gaming with AR glasses, seamlessly integrated into Legion Space, powered by 2D-to-3D technology. Take mobile gaming to the next level with a cutting-edge processor, ultra-responsive display, immersive audio, and advanced cooling.

Zero G environments add a chaotic spectacle to combat, while boost packs give freedom to manoeuvre like never before. Explore planets resources needed to craft everything from medicine and food to equipment and weapons. Pilot and command the ship of your dreams.

Some weapons do more damage in space and less on the ground; some boostpacks give you significantly reduced oxygen (stamina) consumption. Even when you unlock some late-game abilities it’s still pretty straightforward. Starfield is absolutely one of those games that takes way too long to get to the good part. It’s a far cry from Bethesda’s previous games, where you generally couldn’t swing a dead mudcrab without hitting something interesting. I resorted to silly workarounds like simply throwing junk on the floor of my ship like a space hoarder, which somehow doesn’t count toward your storage space.

You probably don’t want to go out of your way to mass produce anything early on, because storage space on the first tier of ships is obnoxiously small for the amount of loot you gather (and there are an incredible amount of minerals and materials that seemed like I’d be kicking myself later for not bringing with me). I spent way too much time running in circles searching for basic things like vendors to sell my loot to while I tried to memorize the layouts of multiple settlements, annoyed that if I were playing after launch I could’ve just checked IGN’s guides for their locations. Great new reasons to obsessively gather and hoard relics of happier times, strong companions, and sympathetic villains driving tough decisions make it an adventure I’ll definitely replay and revisit. It’s impossible not to compare Starfield to the way you freely enter and exit planets’ atmosphere in No Man’s Sky, so it’s a bit of a letdown every time you see a planet and remember it’s just a picture of a planet you’ll never be able to reach by flying toward it. When I discovered that so much of space flight is effectively a series of non-interactive cutscenes, it largely shattered the illusion of exploring a vast universe. Starfield’s problems, though, are glaring – some of which in ways that are inherently different from Bethesda’s other games.

Finally, I have to make a special mention of the lockpicking minigame, which is a simple but satisfying challenge that makes you visualize how several pieces fit together to fill holes. It really is wonderful to see your ship on the landing pad so that you can appreciate the scale of it before getting behind the controls. I didn’t turn to the enticingly profitable smuggling and piracy during my traditional “good guy” first playthrough, but I can certainly see the appeal of that style of play being more than worth the bounties you’d incur and the companions you’d alienate. When you spend a skill point on target locking, it zooms in the view and lets you select one of the enemy’s systems to pelt with lasers, ballistic guns, and missiles. It’s also somewhat disappointing that the in-cockpit displays don’t actually function – your only radar is directional indicators on the edges of your screen.